Ridahne nodded thoughtfully. Just because she was the first did not mean she was the last. There would be others. Something about that made her panic a little, if she was honest with herself. It wasn't so much the fact that either a new Guardian or Seed-Chained would exist that made her panic, but the fact that they, like herself, would be left without someone to guide them. There would be no precedent, no advisor to give them hope or advice or anything. Ridahne would theoretically live a long time, but probably not that long. Then again, what did she know? Maybe in a hundred years this would happen again. Maybe in a thousand. She really had no idea. But she did resolve to at some point, when this was all over, to write some things down. Things she'd already learned, and put it in a sealed envelope that could only be given to the next person. 

She suddenly had a lot of questions, questions she wished she would have asked Ravi when they were with him. Too late now. 

"It will have to be something...more simple then. Not as complex and contextual as the rest of the marks in an Ojih. And I think the one for Seed-Chained will have to be white. White, because it is neither the color of the sky, or the sea, or of the earth. And because in a tattooing sense, white is often used for things that are meant to be added to, or partially covered over. You can't cover over black, see. But both other colors will go over white. The addition for Seed-Honored should be black, not blue, for it does not belong to Azurei. The Guardian mark would also have to be black. Black is a very strong color, it is very final. Like an oath." Ridahne nodded, satisfied with these conclusions. Now she only had to figure out a shape...

Darin asked about marriage, about the mark for it and what it meant, and why people even did it in the first place. That's right--Ridahne forgot her village didn't really practice marriage in a traditional sense. "Well the mark for marriage is actually quite small. It goes along the left jawline and begins with ah..." she gesticulated with her hands helplessly for a moment before drawing it in the air. The shape was almost triangular, except with two points sporting 'tails' that crossed one another. "It's blue. And if you were to outlive your spouse, or if you were to decide to separate--a very rare thing--the little space where the ends cross over is tattooed white. There's another mark that's sort of a 'shorter' version of the first you would get if you remarried. I don't know, it's hard to explain. As for why people do it..." Ridahne shrugged. "A lot of it is tradition, I think. It is not religious for us, though I'm sure for some out there it might be. It's not much different than what your village does, except we just sort of...do it...publicly? It is something we celebrate. Particularly for us, it's important because when you marry, you either give yourself to your spouse's family, or they give themself to yours. And family origin is shown in the [I]Ku'o[/I], this earring thing we wear." She tugged on her bone one. "That's its own thing to explain. But honestly, on a practical level, if you have things to show you are married, like not just committed to a person but sort of publicly declaring it, then people know  you're no longer available for courting." She smiled at that. "It eliminates a lot of confusion."

They began to enter into slightly thicker forest instead of spread out trees and grasses. "Ah, we must be getting close to the border, the land is changing. We'll be there by end of day."